Africa

Boko Haram insurgents have continued to surrender in the terror-troubled North-East as the Nigerian military widens its offensive against terror in the region and around Lake Chad.

France will stop sending public development aid to Mali because of the West African country’s alleged ties to Russian paramilitaries, according to the French foreign ministry.

“Given the attitude of Mali’s junta leader, allied with the Russian mercenaries of Wagner, we have suspended our public development aid to Mali,” a ministry source said on Thursday.

West African coastal states are holding talks on boosting military cooperation against jihadist violence spilling over from the Sahel. This follows recent announcements that several international peacekeeping contingents are being withdrawn from Mali.

Benin, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo are confronting increased risks from Islamic State jihadists and Al Qaeda militants waging war over their northern borders in the Sahel.

Eritrea continues to send military reinforcements to the Tigray region despite the recent peace agreement, according to a statement issued by the regional government on Saturday.

Earlier this month, the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) agreed to a ceasefire as a first step to ending the two-year conflict.

Leaders of French-speaking countries gathered Saturday on a Tunisian island to discuss debt relief, migration, food and energy shortages amid a soaring cost-of-living crisis across Africa, Europe and the Middle East due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The Minister of National Security, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, has revealed that 346 terrorist attacks were recorded in Africa in the first quarter of 2022, with 49 per cent of them occurring in West Africa alone.

Also, he indicated that between July and September this year, 246 terrorist attacks resulting in 745 fatalities and 239 injuries were recorded in West Africa.

In October 2022, Somalia’s capital Mogadishu suffered yet another massive suicidal attack. More than 100 people were killed. Hundreds more were wounded and thousands will have been traumatised by an attack claimed by the Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab.

France seems to be losing the grip it once had on its former colonies, and the rift is growing every day.

“Sixty years on, francophone countries in Africa still do not have true independence and freedom from France,” Nathalie Yamb, adviser to Ivory Coast’s Freedom and Democracy Party (LIDER), told Deutche Welle in 2020. Even the content of school textbooks was often still determined by France, Yamb said, and the political systems in many of the countries were introduced by France.

Entré en fonction il y a tout juste un an, l’envoyé personnel du secrétaire général de l’ONU pour le Sahara occidental a hérité d’un dossier complexe sur lequel il a peu de prise.

Des encouragements. C’est ce dont a dû se contenter Staffan de Mistura, le 27 octobre, lorsque 13 des 15 pays membres du Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU ont approuvé une résolution prolongeant d’un an le mandat de la Mission des Nations unies pour l’organisation d’un référendum au Sahara occidental (Minurso) jusqu’au 31 octobre 2023.